Month: May 2009

Rhubarb plants

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Four rhubarb plants, ready to be planted into the ground
Four rhubarb plants, ready to be planted into the ground

I’ve been cooking a bit with rhubarb recently, including a home-made rhubarb-and-apple pie  last weekend (yum!). I’ve wanted to grow fresh rhubarb for some time now, so last week I ordered four plants from Greenpatch Organic Seeds. Four working days later, they arrived!.

I planted them into the front corner of the garden this afternoon, in between showers of rain. They should be able to grow happily there without getting in the way of anything else. I also don’t think they’ll be very appealing for light-fingered passer-byers.

While I was in hurry to order the plants, I’ll now have to wait. All my gardening books say that rhubarb can’t be harvested in the first growing season, making it two years before we’ll be able to savour the red stalks. They say patience is good for the soul, ask me in two years…

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The Pansy Project

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We recently came across The Pansy Project. It’s an inspiring act of guerilla gardening: Paul (based in the UK) plants pansies on sites where homophobic abuse is experienced.

The project’s website has been offline for a little while, but Paul’s blog makes for interesting reading.

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Lemons, limes and oranges

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Orange, lime, orange and lemon
Orange, lime, orange and lemon

The last major task for the front garden this season was getting in the citrus trees.

Two weekends ago, I started by marking out a garden bed 5.5m x 1.2m, and then dug that down to a depth of a foot-and-a-half (a back-breaking job!). I then constructed a treated pine frame to build the bed up.

I hadn’t quite done the numbers first, and discovered that I’d need an extra 2 tonnes of soil, or thereabouts. So another call to the bulk supplier, and a lot of shovel work later, and the bed was full.

The local Bunnings had a reasonable range of fruit trees, and this is what we ended up putting in:

  • Orange, Lane’s Late Navel (full size)
  • Lime,Tahitian (full size)
  • Orange, Valencia (dwarf)
  • Lemon, Meyer (dwarf)

Now to wait a season (or two) for a full crop…

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Inner west community gardens

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Path through the Marrickville Food Forrest
Path through the Marrickville Food Forrest

There are a number of community gardens in the Inner West of Sydney (and many more beyond). These provide a great opportunity for those with small gardens (or no gardens!) to grow their own vegetables, herbs and fruit.

Today we visited the Marrickville Food Forrest, located on Addison Road, in the Addison Road Centre (ARC). As is typical, it is squeezed into an unused plot of land behind some buildings, but thriving nonetheless.

It makes me appreciate how lucky we are here. We have easily 5 to 6 times the space of a typical community garden plot, with plenty of sun, and room for growth. Now the pressure is on to really make it thrive!

Over the next few months we’ll try to drop into more of these gardens, to get further inspiration on what (and how) to grow. There is also the potential to join up with a Seed Savers group, to swap seeds (we have plenty left over).

These are the gardens on our list for the Inner West:

Further information:

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